Debate Between Syntagmatic and Paradigmatic Approaches to Morphology

¶ … persuade the audience using the scientific method, experimentation and data. There are two typical approaches this may take: the syntagmatic approach or the paradigmatic approach. Within the former, there is a systematic assignment of structure that is designed to logically allow for cognition of the hypothesis under consideration, while the paradigmatic approach looks at the interrelationships between events and actors throughout the entire text. Using the syntagmatic approach one categorizes themes, data sets, and variables to aid in the understanding of the materials.

Using the paradigmatic approach, the reader is taken through chronology and events and then asked to make assumptions and connections between causality (Blevins, n.d.). Paradigms, of course, are models that help us understand broader concepts and constructs. Author Blevins points out that there are a number of units that constitute paradigms, and it is dependent upon which types are linked through structures and organization that make them understandable to the reader.

"The paradigm of an item can be organized into sub-paradigms, whose members are more closely associated with each other than with members of the other sub-paradigms" (p. 2). This helps one understand the way different languages use different forms for case, tense and the overall structure of the basic tenets of the language (e.g. German vs. Finnish). From a basic linguistic perspective, we know that leaners begin their journey of language acquisition through memorizing paradigms -- sets of words that are arranged in grammatical categories (e.g.

present or past tense, active or passive verbs, etc.). Usually, different members of a paradigm are characterized by their endings, which then allows a cognitive jump to moving the endings to different words and applying past knowledge (p.5-6). The impact of this is vast when it comes to relationships between paradigms. To learn a language, one must make interpretive deductions that, over time, expand both vocabulary and literacy -- and therefore meaning.

This helps us understand declension, root word migration, and what the author calls paradigm economy, or the blend of generalizations and constraints surrounding paradigms that require inflection or other linguistic tools to understand language development -- particularly in more complex languages like Georgian or Aramaic. We know, of course, than languages are living expressions of culture, and do not develop in isolation.

Instead, paradigms are driven by economy of expression and evolve over time to make understanding easier within the context of cultural development (culture in this case may mean gender, tense, or aspect) (pp. 12-13). In practical terms, Blevins suggests that when dealing with experimental discourse, the use of the two different styles of interpreting provide a conceptual linkage to the way language is used as a persuasive device. Form and structure have their own strengths, and if one is able to fill in the logical pattern of cognitive.